195x Filetype PDF File size 0.13 MB Source: plaza.ufl.edu
MAC2234: Survey of Calculus II 1 Introduction 1.1 Course content MAC2234 is a survey of integral calculus with an eye towards applications in business, social sciences, and life sciences. 1.2 Course Prerequisites To enroll in MAC2234, you must have earned a C or higher (not a C-) in MAC2233. You mayalso take the ALEKS assessment (information at http://isis.ufl.edu/aleksinfo). If you are unsure if you meet the prerequisites, I recommend speaking to an academic advisor or making an appointment at the math department office (LIT 358). 1.3 Knowledge Prerequisites Youmustbecomfortable with precalculus topics, especially the basics of functions, polyno- mials and factoring. You will need to know how to use logarithms and exponentials. From MAC2233, you must have mastered limits, differentiation, and the basics of integration. If you are uncomfortable with any of these topics, please catch up now, as the course will proceed quickly assuming knowledge of these topics. 1.4 Instructor Mynameis Alexander Gruber. Please address me as “Alex.” I am not a formal person. The best way to contact me is by email, at gruberan@ufl.edu. You are always free to email me questions about calculus. Myoffice is LIT 457, which is on the fourth floor of Little Hall. 1 2 Materials 2.1 Textbook The textbook we will be using is MAC2234 Survey of Calculus II, University of Florida. Pearson Custom-Mathematics. 2.2 Calculators Calculators should only be necessary for numerical problems; however, you’re welcome to use them whenever you like, even on quizzes and exams. The difficulty of this course lies in application, understanding, and adaption of the concepts, not in memorization or arithmetic computations. You will have to justify all the steps that you take on paper either way. I recommend bringing a calculator to class just in case. Any scientific or graphing calculators should be fine. Make sure they can take square roots, exponentials, logs, and so on. 2.3 Online resources • Your grades will be updated regularly on Sakai, located at http://lss.at.ufl.edu. I will also post homework problems, quiz solutions, and all manner of other things. • Personally, I recommend using http://math.stackexchange.com for online math help. (This is where I go for help on my own homework!) The population can be somewhat unfriendly to those who do not follow their guidelines, so if you choose to use this site, please read http://meta.math.stackexchange.com/questions/9959/ how-to-ask-a-good-question before posting a question. • I will (eventually) maintain a course homepage at http://plaza.ufl.edu/gruberan/MAC2234_U14/MAC2234_U14.html. 2.4 Other resources • My office hours are Monday, Wednesday, and Friday, the period after class (period 3, 9:35am–10:25am). My office is LIT 457, on the fourth floor of Little Hall. In past courses, seeking help during my office hours has been strongly correlated with receiving better grades. • The teaching center in SE Broward Hall has tutoring services geared specifically towards helping calculus students. You must attempt to solve the problems on your ownbeforeyouseekhelpfromtutorsthere. Thissummer, Browardwillnotbeholding test reviews for MAC2234, but you can still get help during open tutoring hours or the general Calculus II hours. Their schedule is available at 2 http://www.teachingcenter.ufl.edu/tutoring_schedule.html • The Office of Academic Support offers one-on-one tutoring. Their website is http://oas.aa.ufl.edu/tutoring.aspx • You can find a list of private tutors from the mathematics department at http://www.math.ufl.edu/files/tutorlistSpring14.pdf. 3 How Course Grades Will Be Determined Yourcoursegradeisdetermined50%fromexamsand50%fromquizzes. Inborderlinecases, the higher grade will be assigned only to students who turn in their homework regularly. 3.1 Quizzes The curriculum can be broken down into twelve topics, half of which will be considered “core” and half of which will be considered “non-core.” This categorization corresponds roughly to how likely I think it is that you will use that topic in real life someday. We have thirteen weeks of class to work with, so we’ll cover approximately one topic per week. There will be weekly quizzes, which are your chance to show me your level of mastery of that week’s topic. Each quiz will be awarded one of the following scores: I Insufficient S Satisfactory E Excellent Over the course of the semester, I will keep a record of your highest displayed level of performance on each topic. Then, after the final, I will determine your quiz score based on the following criteria. A Excellent on all topics A- Excellent on all core topics and four non-core topics, satisfactory on others B+ Excellent on all core topics and two non-core topics, satisfactory on others B Excellent on all core topics, satisfactory on non-core topics B- Excellent on all core topics, satisfactory on four non-core topics C+ Excellent on all core topics, satisfactory on two non-core topics C Excellent on all core topics C- Satisfactory on all core topics and four non-core topics D+ Satisfactory on all core topics and two non-core topics D Satisfactory on all core topics To summarize: if you have, at some point in the semester, scored excellent on all twelve topics, your quiz grade is an A. If you score excellent on all core topics, your quiz grade will at least be a C. 3 3.1.1 Quiz Reassessments The advantage of this method of grading is that it specifically identifies which topics you are weakest in. To show me that you have improved on a topic in which you have received a low score, you may request a reassessment, to be administered during office hours. If your new grade is higher than your old grade, the old grade is replaced. In general, the reassessments may be a little harder than the original quiz (mostly because I start to run out of easy problems after a while). They will still be of comparable difficulty, though. Some rules about this: 1. To schedule a reassessment, you must email or talk to me at least three days in advance and tell me which topic you would like to be reassessed in. This is because I have to write you a new quiz, which takes time. 2. You cannot reassess on the same day that you come to my office hours for help. You are either there for help or there to reassess. 3. You may only reassess topics covered since the last exam. Aside from that, you can reassess any topic as many times as you want, so keep learning until you get it right! 4. You must have taken a quiz to reassess it. You may not reassess due to an absence. 3.2 Exams There will be two midterms and a final. All exams will be cumulative. Since we’re lucky enough to have this course during the summer, we don’t have to deal with any of the obstacles that come with having a large class. This includes scantrons - all answers will be written, with work fully shown. Exams are designed to measure your understanding of the concepts behind the tech- niques and your ability to adapt them to unfamiliar situations. You will be given problems much like ones you would encounter in a real world scenario. Like the quizzes, each exam problem will be associated with a topic. The first midterm will have four problems, the second will have eight problems, and the final will have twelve problems. A perfect score on an exam problem will replace a lower quiz score on the respective topic. Exam scores cannot be reassessed. However, a better exam grade will replace an old exam grade. So, for example, if your highest exam grade is on the final exam, that grade is your exam score. If your highest exam grade is the second midterm, your exam score is the average of the second exam and the final. If your highest exam grade is the first midterm, your exam score is either the average of all three exam grades or the average of the first exam and the final (depending on what you scored on your second exam). 4
no reviews yet
Please Login to review.